City Research Online

Abstract

In 2013 the government promised that new reforms would ‘deliver better outcomes for women offenders’ (Ministry of Justice, 2013b, p.16). This was a bold statement and a laudable ambition. However, this strategy – called and aimed at Transforming Rehabilitation - will only be successful if sentencers are aware of (and support) the options that new providers put in place to achieve its goals. This chapter considers current levels of awareness of the new reforms among magistrates. Highlighting reservations about the suitability of community provision, and a lack of awareness about developments under Transforming Rehabilitation, it emphasises the lack of information that magistrates receive on this issue. Supplementing the findings of a recent research project conducted with 168 magistrates (see Birkett, 2016), this chapter provides a post-Transforming Rehabilitation ‘update’, drawing on 24 semi-structured interviews and a survey of 86 magistrates sitting across England and Wales. As such, it places particular focus on developments that followed the implementation of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, the legislative measures underpinning the government’s flagship Transforming Rehabilitation policy agenda.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	Birkett, G. Sentencing Women in the Transformed Probation Landscape. In: N. South, K. Brennan, E. Milne & J. Turton (Eds.), Women and the Criminal Justice System: Failing Victims and Offenders? . Palgrave Macmillan, reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-76774-1_7
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology

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